Starting from May 2016, our Shanghai office has become a Google Analytics Certified Partner (GACP). This certification validates our agency's strong digital analytics expertise in China from one of the leading analytics solutions worldwide.
It is important to note that the Google Analytics partnership does not work at a global level, each local office having to be certified.

Starting from May 2016, our Shanghai office has become a Google Analytics Certified Partner (GACP). This certification validates our agency's strong digital analytics expertise in China from one of the leading analytics solutions worldwide.
It is important to note that the Google Analytics partnership does not work at a global level, each local office having to be certified. This local certification process was important to our eyes in order to show our commitment to help our clients with their local analytics challenges in China (and there are many!).
Google asked us to prove our capabilities regarding Google Analytics evangelization internally (for altima° teams) and for our current client portfolio. The requirements on Google’s side are the following:
Technical abilities
The first step is about explaining how we manage to set up advanced Universal Analytics implementation (needs definition, tagging plan delivery, technical corrections and debugging, set up of advanced modules and features).
Analytics abilities and business impact
After the technical abilities, the idea is to describe any analysis done before or after the technical work in order to identify problems or opportunities on our clients' websites, with their marketing program, or to achieve other business goals.
Then we need to show that the insights we provided have generated measurable business impacts for them. What were the marketing and technical recommendations we gave, which one were applied by the clients and for which results afterwards?
Internal support / training / evangelization abilities
In that last section of requirements, we have to explain how we train and support the staff locally about web analytics matters and Google Analytics more specifically, to be at the same level of expertise as our original certified office (located in Roubaix, France).
At the same time, we also need to prove how the support teams consistently share best practices, lessons and techniques across offices worldwide.
In the end, what does this partnership stand for?
It is a way to ensure our future clients that we have the required skills to help them in their digital analytics strategy optimization using Google Analytics, from the implementation of the solution to the data analysis, and then providing training and assistance. This Certification officialises the quality of web analytics consulting services provided by altima° in Shanghai.
For any enquiry related to Google Analytics or digital analytics in China at large, please feel free to contact our Beijing or Shanghai offices.

This report gives us many figures to understand the mobile search market in the beginning of 2016. The market penetration of the different search engine, how the contents are searched in the mobile and when users like to search in mobile and other interesting results have been presented in these report.

This report gives us many figures to understand the mobile search market in the beginning of 2016. The market penetration of the different search engine, how the contents are searched in the mobile and when users like to search in mobile and other interesting results have been presented in these report. I do not want to list them one by one but just highlight some key facts to help optimize the SEM mobile strategy.
But first let me conclude some key facts:
Baidu is still the No.1 search engine in mobile market
News, Transpiration, Travelling and Finance are the top 4 popular contents
Browser is still the main way for mobile search, but search engine apps catch up.
UC browser is the No.1 browser
Over 50% of users will use mobile for search over 10 times per day.
42% internet user will spend around 16-30 minutes for each search
People use mobile for search mainly in rest, before sleep and after waking up
And then I will talk something that might have influence on your SEM mobile strategy.
The market penetration
Different from PC where Baidu and 360 are leading the market, the competition in mobile is more complicated and diverse because of the mobility and fragmentation of mobile.
Though Baidu is still the top 1 in the market, but Shenma and Sogou has already followed up. Shenma will rely on the database of Alibaba to have the access of its amazing database. And Sogou was bought by Tecent to have access to the wechat database. Sogou and Shenma will depend on the innovation and the strong database of Tecent and Alibaba to differentiate from Baidu.
It is good, but I do not suggest investing or setting a universal strategy for all the search engines. It is better to understand the customer segmentation of your brands and the search engine first. For example, Shenma has a large group of younger users, and if your customer segmentation is quite old, I do not suggest wasting the money in this search engine.
And if social media especially wechat advertisement is in your new proposal, I strongly suggest investing in Sogou for its shared database with Wechat. And the data in the Sogou will also provide you with more precise data to help the social media advertisement.
Popular Search Inquiry Content
If we look at the content users like to search, you will also find some things to help you make the budgets plan for each search engine. Let me make an example of travelling: 48.7% in Baidu, 61.9% in Shenma, 40.9% in Sogou and 16.8% in Google will search travel. Well, if you have enough money to burn, welcome to all the channels. But if you have limited budgets, in this case, Shenma will be your first choose.
Also you can make some combos in your multi channel strategy. You can use Baidu as your main channel in pc while you use Shenma in mobile, there is no paradox.
Searching Time – Fragment
When people will use mobile for the search, will the No.1 is breaking time. This term is very tricky. But it can present one thing, the times for the mobile search is more fragmental. Thousands of people have thousands searching time. And that is the difficult for the mobile to do the analysis for the fragmental searching. That is one of the reason the e-commerce CVR is quite lower in the mobile side. In this report, majority of the each search will maintain 16-30minutes. I guess it might be very difficult for a customer to finish the whole customer journey in 30 minutes.
If you are an e-commerce company with responsive mobile site, a good solution is to set the different objectives or the KPIs based on the time. Normally before the sleep has a higher CVR than the other periods. For example if your assist/direct attributor time gap is 19:00 at night. So before the 19:00 is quantity-reach and after 19:00 is quality-reach.
If you are an e-commerce company with non-responsive site, it is better just to set the branding and quantity –reach for the objectives.
If you are a non e-commerce websites, just branding and quantity reach.

It’s official. Everybody is talking about React but even after making a real effort and consulting reference materials, it’s difficult to understand this technology’s impact on SEO. Allow me to shed a little light on the subject.

It’s official. Everybody is talking about React but even after making a real effort and consulting reference materials, it’s difficult to understand this technology’s impact on SEO. Allow me to shed a little light on the subject.
What is React? What’s it used for? Why is it a good thing?
With the rise of SPA, “real time” web applications such as Gmail, Airbnb, Soundcloud or even Netflix, frameworks and JS libraries have never been so popular.
On the one hand, users are more and more mature and asking for these types of applications which are extremely satisfying in terms of use. On the other hand, most developers are looking for better performance (seamless interface, scalability and cost reduction) and they enjoy writing beautiful code (the joy of coding, legibility, power and maintenance).
Hard not to see technologies such as AngularJS (the Google framework), Backbone.js, Ember.js or KnockoutJS.
The massive use of JavaScript means a whole new ball game for SEO.
So… What’s the deal with JavaScript?
The main issue with these frameworks is that content is inserted on the client side after loading the page from the server side (the opposite, for example, of PHP): if you look at the source code, there’s a void.
Under these circumstances, Googlebot cannot crawl and index the content inserted after the fact: catastrophic from an SEO point of view! (or so it’s said…)
Recently, Google announced that Googlebot would now try to interpret the crawled pages by executing JavaScript… “would try to…”
“We decided to try to understand pages by executing JavaScript”
In a post dated May 23, 2014, Google stated that GoogleBot can render pages with JavaScript and consequently index content that was invisible heretofore (because generated on the client side and not the server side… you following me?). However, as you can imagine, at the web’s scale, this is colossal work:
“It’s hard to do that at the scale of the current web, but we decided that it’s worth it.”
On the developer side, there have been numerous development initiatives for crawling and indexing content generated in this manner but they remain costly or at a minimum, restrictive in a project’s life cycle.
That’s where React, aka THE solution, comes in! Still with me?
What’s React?
React is a library (a collection of methods and functions) that allow the development of interfaces that have the particularity of constantly changing: one can imagine a “real time” comments module or the Facebook Ticker (that summarizes your friends’ actions, here again in quasi “real time”).
React’s strength is to always find the best way of updating and rendering these changes [rapidly], without having the user reload the page.
This library’s development as well as its publication is the result of collaboration by a good hundred developers working in different companies including, initially, Facebook and Instagram: so pretty serious stuff!
React’s strengths
“React is so fast because it never talks to the DOM directly.”
Understandability: the product code is “clean” (easy to ready, easy to understand and easy to maintain), reading the code means immediately seeing what the application will be used for and what it will look like.
Performance: the Virtual DOM is one of React’s key functions. React endeavors to process and display the view’s changes only (by setting aside the rest of the view, which doesn’t change).
Community: ReactJS rapidly convinced the community of JS developers. And that’s before talking about React Native which allows rendering of native iPhone applications (Android coming soon) by writing JavaScript; Which results in considerable development time savings.
[HOT SEO] Isomorphism and server-side rendering: through the use of a Node server, code can be generated on the client side AND the server side (so kinda like PHP but without reloading!) as compared to other traditional JS libraries and frameworks (Backbone.js, AngularJS, Ember.js, etc.) which execute native code only on the client side (in the browser). This strength is the one that is most interesting from an SEO perspective as it solves the issue of indexing context (ability to be crawled and indexed) created on the client side.
Isomor… Huh?
You need only remember that the code between the client (your browser) and the server is the same! In other words, “The backend and frontend share the same code.” (as diagrammed below on the right)
Besides, React is not the only library to bring this technology “on board”. To date, we have already identified a good twenty such as Brisket, Cassis, Catberry, Chaplin, Derby, Ezel, Este, Flatiron, Fluxible, Invisible, jsblocks, Loopback, Lazojs, Loopback, Mojito, Sara.js, San Stack and Taunus.
And concerning vocabulary, some prefer the use of Universal JavaScript rather than isomorphism. You have to admit that the expression is easier to understand.
“… this is purely anecdotal evidence, but when we use the word universal instead of isomorphic everyone gets it.”
ReactJS ≠ AngularJS
“Lots of people use React as the V in MVC.”
Don’t waste time comparing them, React, as opposed to AngularJS, is not a framework.
But if you’re obsessed by the difference between frameworks and libraries, don’t hesitate to take a look at the conversations. For you others, just remember that React does not impose a specific architecture on your application and so can be appended to any project using other web technologies (including AngularJS) in a completely autonomous manner.
“React is just the VIEW”
How do we do this?
You pay, or you do-it-yourself!
If you don’t have the means, you will present an alternative HTML version (a snapshot) of the pages to the exploration bots by using a Phantom.js (you can take a look at the tutorial; it’s a bit dated but the idea is there). Yes, cloaking! Purists will say that’s “dirty” and difficult to maintain but it works and rather well.
However, if you have a little money (or an economic model that is roadworthy), it’s pretty powerful and easy to put in place: to name but two,Prerender or BromBone. If you find the topic “How to make your JavaScript apps SEO-friendly” interesting, the article below is good.
Advantages of ReactJS for SEO
The ability of robots to natively crawl and index content: all the advantages of JS without the inconveniences!
Favorable loading times create good user experience. Happy users = Happy Google.
That’s it?! Yes, as far as SEO is concerned. It all depends on what you will then do with implementation on the back-office side. And to complete this theme’s analysis, I recommend that you take a look at the following article by Zack Argyle, a developer @Pinterest: “Stop Using React for EVERYTHING”.
“If you have a highly dynamic application that needs to rerender frequently, and you want to avoid the heavy weight of template diffing, you’re looking at a grass-type opponent and ReactJS’s virtual DOM will be super effective. However, if your site doesn’t have those needs, CHOOSE SOMETHING ELSE!”
React inconveniences?
Simply put, none. But with a little digging, we found:
Reference materials are increasing but in the not too distant past, it was not easy to muddle through with only Facebook’s Get started.
Facebook reserves the right to withdraw the license, the right to use React. This is a topic for debate although quite innocently one can ask what possible interest Facebook would have to adopt this type of attitude.
Who uses React?
More and more companies! To talk about the best known, of course we’ll cite Facebook, Instagram but also Yahoo, Adobe, Airbnb, AdRoll, Asana, BBC, Century 21, Club Med, Dropbox, Feedly, Github, Khan Academy, KissMetrics, Netflix, Reddit, Salesforce, Twitter, WhatsApp and many others.
AND THAT’S NOT ALL…
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please share or tell us about your experience (good or bad) with frameworks and JS libraries by leaving a comment.
And if you want more, I recommend reading our previous article Demandware: SEO advantages and inconveniences.
PS: Thanks to Anne, Georges, Jérémy, Blandine, François and Audrey for the proofing!
Sources & inspirations
React vs AngularJS – How the two Compare [EN]
Facebook ReactJS – Ressources pour bien commencer [FR]
Awesome React, a collection of awesome React tools, resources, videos and shiny things [EN]
Articles ignored
React Native, a framework for building native apps using React [EN]
JSX, a JavaScript syntax extension that looks similar to XML [EN]
Reusable Components [EN]
Add-ons React, some useful utilities for building React apps [EN]
Flux, the application architecture for building client-side web applications [EN]

The Chinese e-commerce market is the largest in the world and predicted to grow exponentially in the coming years. Moreover, the digital landscape in China is very different to the West!
Would you like to get a better understanding of the market in China?

The Chinese e-commerce market is the largest in the world and predicted to grow exponentially in the coming years. Moreover, the digital landscape in China is very different to the West!
Would you like to get a better understanding of the market in China? To grasp Consumer behaviour and local e-commerce trends ?
Take part in the training session run by Arnaud Rofidal, partner in altima° (China) and organized by Regroup Media, a digital agency based in London.
Click here for more information !

We announced in July 2013 our partnership with Hybris, editor of an e-commerce platform. It’s an alliance that allowed us to add our expertise in marketing and SEO to the power of the Hybris platform.
Today we are approaching a new stage of this partnership since altima ° has become the VAR (Value Added Reseller) partner of the Hybris Commerce solution.

We announced in July 2013 our partnership with Hybris, editor of an e-commerce platform. It’s an alliance that allowed us to add our expertise in marketing and SEO to the power of the Hybris platform.
Today we are approaching a new stage of this partnership since altima ° has become the VAR (Value Added Reseller) partner of the Hybris Commerce solution.
What does it mean?
We are now authorized to sell the license of Hybris Commerce product of SAP to our end customers.
What does it change concretely?
We are able to respond independently to customer’s needs in digitization of his business, and to all channels (license selling, integration, hosting, operations and business expertise).
Therefore this is a great news for altima group who is now part of the main SAP partners in Hybris e-commerce!
Just a small reminder, in June 2013, SAP tookover Hybris Software, the Swiss company, to merge the e-commerce platform of Hybris Software with its Hana in-memory analytics platform but also with its cloud and analytical applications. In 2015 Hybris Commerce will be fully integrated to SAP.